Freedom From Hunger

Freedom From Hunger was doing microfinance before it was cool – they’ve been around for 60 years! They provide microloans – plus practical adult education programs focusing on health, nutrition, and business and money management – to women and groups of women living on less than $1 a day.

Why programs for women? From FFH’s FAQ page:

Why only women? Why don’t you work with men?We don’t exclude men: we focus on women. After all, no one is working harder to end hunger than a mother with a hungry child. Freedom from Hunger helps her succeed. Women play a key role in the family and nowhere is that more true than in the developing world. Women are the primary caretakers of children under the age of five – and these are the people most vulnerable to the ravages of chronic hunger and malnutrition. UNICEF puts the number of children who die every day of causes related to hunger at about 16,000. And of those, 11,000 are under the age of five. Research (our own and others’) confirms that mothers tend to use new income and resources for the immediate benefit of their children, whereas husbands tend to use it for larger household or business purposes. By putting powerful resources – such as knowledge and financial services – directly into the hands and minds of women, we can help the entire family.